Tag Archives: Transfers

Premier League clubs spend over €500m on “bunch of Uber drivers”

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This morning’s blog was initially planned to be a discussion about how the PSR reporting date had become a new influencing factor when it came to transfers being completed.

Summer tournaments such as the Euro’s have always lead to slow starts to the transfer windows. In my mind, the slow start to this transfer window had been exacerbated by PSR.

Deals completed by 30 June 2024 go into the 2023/24 reporting window, whilst deals completed on 1 July 2024 do not need to be reported until 2024/25. If a club was on the brink of breaking the rules in 2023/24, they would be keeping their powder dry until 1 July before completing any deals.

During my research for the blog, I was surprised to read that Premier League clubs had already spent over €500m on new players. That is an incredible when you consider the spending by other leagues in the summer of 2023:

Ligue 1: €910m
Serie A: €878m
Bundesliga: €735m
Premier League: €520m – 2024 to date
La Liga: €443m

With 2 months still left in the transfer window, Premier League sides have already spent more than every La Liga team did in the summer of 2023. And they are over half way to the total expenditure by French teams last summer.

What is even more incredible about this figure is the Big 4 have yet to spend a penny – Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool have seen no new arrivals yet.

Surely I am not alone to think that this transfer window has had a slow start?

It might be that the lack of business by big clubs has influenced my mind, or it might be that I just do not care anymore about transfers and the transfer window – it does drag on!

But my theory is a lot of money has been spent on not very much. A lot of “PSR deals” pushing up the total expenditure. And a lot of average players going for €20m+

Ian Maatsen – €44m
Archie Gray – €41.25m
Elliot Anderson – €41.2m
Yankuba Minteh – €38.8m
Igor Thiago – €33m
Lewis Hall – €33m
Omari Hutchinson – €23.5m
Luis Sinisterra – €23.4m
Luis Guilherme – €23m
Taylor Harwood-Bellis – €23m
Omari Kellyman – €22.5m
Ibrahim Osman – €20m

That is nearly €366m on big money transfers, and I do not know who most of them are! In months down the line, fans will be complaining about PSR and how their club is being punished. When the reality is they have spend millions on average players!

This is not clubs spending sensibly.

I could jump in my cab in the morning and not batter an eye lid if any of them were behind the wheel. It is literally over €500m spent on players who would be no more recognisable than an Uber driver!

It still feels like a slow start to the window, and I think that is because a lot of money has been spent on crap. No marquee signings. No big name incomings. Just cash changing hands to try and circumnavigate PSR.

I am happy that we have not made a signing yet. The big, better signings will come once Euro’s is over. The only players available at this time is the average clowns mentioned above!

Have a good Tuesday!

Keenos

Nygaard, Garcia, Ramsdale and More…

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It’s Friday! Well done for getting through another working week Another 5 days closer to retirement!

Yesterday we had some actual transfer news. Sort of.

The club announced Danish keeper Lucas Nygaard would be joining the academy. I know nothing about the 18-year-old, and anyone who claims they have seen him play is a liar.

We have a log history of signing young goalkeepers from foreign shores, but to date none have ever progressed to become a first team regular. So excuse me if I am not exactly excited about his arrival (and nor should I be. He is a kid!)

Staying with goalkeepers, we have been heavily linked with Espanyol’s Joan Garcia.

The 23-year-old played a key role last season as his club won promotion back to La Liga, making 21 club appearances.

A quick Google of his name shows that in the last 24 hours he has also “signed” for Real Madrid, Liverpool and Tottenham. This one feels like an agent using big clubs to get his clients name in the press.

At the same time as the Garcia story, speculation is rising around the departure of Aaron Ramsdale.

Newcastle United seems to be the club he is being linked with the most, although they are also reportedly very close to signing Burnley’s James Trafford.

I did laugh at one article which stated “Newcastle value Ramsdale at £15m”. If this was the other way round, social media would be filled with crying Geordies complaining about the “Red Cartel”, PSR and that Arsenal are a disgrace for trying to by someone for less than they vlue him at.

Of course, the transfer fee mooted in media speculation is often wrong and can differ widely depending on the outlet. I am not sure why so many get their knickers in a twist.

Ramsdale’s book value is currently £8m, so anything above that will be profit for The Arsenal. I would expect any fee for the Englishman to both cover his remaining book value, and the cash needed to pay for his replacement.

The fee being floated for Joan Garcia is £21million, so I would expect Ramsdale to go for around £30m if that will be the cost of his replacement.

One last bit of Arsenal news surrounds Omari Hutchinson.

The former graduate joined Chelsea two years ago. He preferred to move to West London for “first team football” rather than sign a new deal with Arsenal and go out on-loan.

Hutchinson then proceeded to rot in Chelsea’s reserves for a year before going out on loan to Ipswich Town. The move to Chelsea basically cost him a year of his career.

The 20-year-old is now being linked with a permanent move to Ipswich in a deal that could be worth as much as £22m. Unconfirmed rumours are we will get 50% of any transfer fee.

Today it is a case of getting work completed as quickly as possible before heading to the pub. Pre-season starts this weekend with my annual BBQ.

Keenos

Transfer merry-go-round circumnavigates PSR

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Aston Villa close on signing Ian Maatsen after agreeing terms on six-year deal
Aston Villa forward Jhon Duran ‘excited’ to complete Chelsea transfer

Chelsea looking to sign Jhon Duran for around £40m, whilst Aston Villa pursue Ian Maatsen in a deal worth around £37m has raised a few eyebrows considering both clubs were on the list of “needing to sell” by the end of the month to avoid breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules.

How can they spend without selling first was a common comment under social media posts providing updates on the deal as many scratched their head. But what both clubs are looking to get out of their PSR predicament by scratching each other’s backs.

When you sell a player, 100% of the book profit goes straight into the accounts – the book profit being the difference between what you sell for minus what you still have remaining in amortised transfer fees.

But when you buy a player, you only need to account for 20% of their transfer fee if they are signing a 5-year deal.

Duran was signed in January 2023 by Villa for £14.75m. They have around £10m remaining in amortised transfer fees. If they sell for £40m, they then show a book profit of £30m. That is probably more than enough to keep them out of trouble with PSR.

Ian Maatsen has come through Chelsea’s youth system, so the £37m rumoured transfer fee would be 100% book profit.

Working the deals the other way (based on 5-year deals), Duran will cost Chelsea £8m a year, and Maatsen £7.4m to Villa.

For the 2023/24 accounts, the difference between Chelsea selling Maatsen and buying Duran is £29m, whilst Villa’s side of the deal will show a net £22.6m. These figures might be enough to ensure neither club falls foul to PSR for this year.

To make it clear, what they are doing is not a loophole, nor is either club twisting the rules. But it is the sort of transfer merry-go-round we will begin seeing clubs partake more in.

If you and another club are close to breaking PSR, instead of “having” to sell a star player to stay within the rules, you could just do a deal with another club in a similar situation for a “player swap”. But instead of just swapping players, you assign a fee to both.

At its extreme, you could both pick a 20-year-old academy graduate that you no longer really want, and sell them for £100m. Neither club is really spending anything as you are bank-transferring £100m across and then receiving £100m back. But what you are then doing is adding £100m profit to this years accounts.

Back in 2020, Juventus signed Arthur Melo from Barcelona on a five-year contract for €72m. “Going the other way”, Miralem Pjanić joined Barcelona from Juventus for €60m. The huge fees ensured that both clubs did not breach UEFA FFP rules.

The issue with this tactic is it is very short term.

Whilst you are adding £100m to your accounts for this year (based on if 2 clubs decide to push the situation to the max), it then adds a further £20m to a clubs amortisation costs for the next 4 years. That is money they then need to find. And whilst they could continue repeating the trick, each time you do it adds more to your costs for a player you might not really want.

And this is where a lack of knowledge comes in.

If Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle or Nottingham Forest do this sort of deal together, their fans will celebrate “getting one over” the Premier League, not realising that they are not really solving the fact that their club is badly run.

I think we will see more of these sort of deals over the next few years. Aston Villa are this morning getting linked with Everton’s Lewis Dobbin. Do not be surprised if you see someone like Jacob Ramsey go the other way.

These sort of deals are a move of desperation. They are short-term. The footballing equivalent of taking out a pay day loan. They are not something a serious club would do.

Like Chelsea offering extreme long term contracts to bring down the amortisation costs, these sort of transfers are perfectly fine. But there is a huge downside that should be clear and obvious to all.

Badly run clubs need to come within the rules by ensuring their books naturally balance, and not by relying on selling hotels, training grounds or involving themselves in transfer merry-go-rounds. All of these are short term solutions and will just kick the can of debt and punishment down the road.

Keenos